Features Overview

Leverage features to drive collaboration, engagement, dashboards, feedback, automation, and more...

This article applies to All editions.
Note: Some details are limited to our GoEarly version. Updates coming soon!

What Are Features and Why Should I Use Them?

A critical part of validating your product is ensuring its key components are properly tested. Features are specific aspects of your product that you wish for participants to interact with and validate. They enable focused testing based on what’s important to your product's success. Identifying features within Centercode provides you with concrete signals which tie together your activities, product satisfaction, feedback, and dashboards. Further, identifying features allows Ted to determine which parts of your product haven't been thoroughly tested based on user participation, prompting him to reach out to testers to fill those gaps.

Creating a Feature

What feature or experience would you like to test?

In this section, you'll determine a few key facets about your feature, including its name, description, and value.

Feature: Enter the name of your feature. Testers will see this in different places throughout your project, in the Feature drop-down on feedback forms for example. It’s important to make these names short, easy to understand, and unique. Using the same name for multiple features, even in different phases, may cause testers to become confused about which one to pick.
Feature description : The names are usually short and catchy, so the description lets you add extra details about the feature. This helps testers figure out if it’s the right choice for their feedback.
Feature value: The value assigned to each feature helps the system determine whether it should be prioritized, de-prioritized, or neither. Specifically, the value chosen here will contribute to the weight score of feedback submitted for this feature. This will be multiplied with the popularity score of the ticket to determine the impact score. Each value will adjust the popularity of the feedback using these multipliers: None (0), Very Low (0.5), Low (0.75), Neutral (1), High (1.5), and Very High (2).

💡 Ted Tip: I recommend assigning each feature a value of neutral to begin. From there, review the full list of features and think about how they compare to each other. Ask yourself if any are a little more important (High), a lot more important (Very High), a bit less important (Low), significantly less important (Very Low), or feedback you don’t really want to see (None).

How would you like this feature tested or experienced?

In this section, select the way you'd like your testers to engage with this feature. The selection defines your "activity intent" and helps the system understand what kind of activity you expect your participants to complete. Additionally, when selecting one of the "Recorded" radio buttons, video capture options will be enabled.

Exploratory task: Used to encourage users to explore and experience an area of the product. The prompts will guide you to create an open ended task where users naturally utilize an aspect of your product then report on it.
Prescriptive task: Used when instructing users to complete a specific detailed task. The prompts will guide you to create a task with a clear sequence of instructions for testers to follow.
Recorded interview: Used when you would like to collect a recorded interview of the user and their experience. You will have the opportunity to provide both instructions on what the user should discuss, as well as any specific instructions on how you would like the video recorded. This will add a video capture element users will need to complete to complete the feature.
Recorded experience: Used when you would like users to record their experience with your product, either via webcam or mobile phone camera. You will have the opportunity to provide both instructions on what the user should do with your product during the recording, as well as any specific instructions on how you would like the video recorded. This will add a video capture element users will need to complete to complete the feature.
Recorded screen: Used when you would like users to capture a recording of their screen. This is useful for capturing information on software utilization, account creation experience, etc. This will add a screen capture element users will need to complete to complete the feature.

Note: iPhone users may run into trouble with Apple's security when using this feature. In that case, they will need to record the video and attach it using the same screen capture element.

Activity options

Optional: Testers will still be asked to complete activities associated with optional features. They can say they did not complete the activity and indicate they do not plan to complete it.
Conditional: If you have at least one other feature in your test plan, choosing this option will bring up a drop-down menu. From that menu, you can pick another feature. The feature you’re working on won’t be able to be completed until users finish the activity associated with feature you’ve selected from the drop-down.

How would you like to instruct testing?

You can give testers instructions in many different ways. You can write them down, use pictures, create a quick start guide that they can download, make a video explaining what to do, or even try something different. For more detailed instructions on how each individual element works see our Resource Creation article! (LINK THIS)

💡 Ted Tip: When creating activities, make them open ended enough to allow testers to flex their creativity while exploring the feature. Do this by providing a specific endpoint you want them to work towards but minimal instructions on how to get there. It's ok if they can't figure it out. That's valuable feedback, too!

Configure your tester video capture

This section will only be displayed if one of the "Recorded" options is selected in the "How would you like this feature tested or experienced?" section.

Video recording instructions: Use this section to provide customized instructions to your testers to help them capture useful videos.
Transcribe recording: This option will automatically create a transcription of tester recorded videos.
Mark as personal data: This option controls if tester recorded videos are treated as containing PII, and if they will be erased if the tester removes their account.

How would you like testers to report on this activity?

Set your preferences for what testers will be responsible for when engaging with this feature's activity.

Centercode FSAT: Use the built-in Centercode FSAT survey for a simple setup that collects a 5 star rating then directs users to submit feedback based on their satisfaction of the tested feature. (automatically includes both "Additional step" options below.)
Custom: This option allows you to tie one of your custom surveys to this feature activity. The user will be directed to the survey immediately after completing the activity and the survey will only be available to users who complete the activity.
None: No special functionality will be included for this activity (star rating can still be collected via the "Collect star rating" option below.

Additional steps

Collect star rating: This option determines if the user will be presented with the 5-star satisfaction score before completing the activity. If this is not selected users will simply be asked if they completed the activity.
Collect feedback: This determines if this feature will be included in the "Feature" drop-down when submitting feedback.

Who would you like to access this feature? [Team and Legacy Edition Only]

Choose the team(s) who will see this feature. Anyone who doesn't have access to the feature will not be prompted to complete the activity and they won't see the feature listed when submitting feedback.

For more information see our Access article here!

Other Feature Types

Regression features

Add features here if you'd like to test them repeatedly across multiple engagement phases. Once one or more features are created (or moved) under this heading, modify an engagement phase and check the "Include regression features in this phase". All regression features will be included in that engagement phase and users will be prompted to test those features. Use the dashboards to compare results for the same feature across different phases.

New user features

Testers with access to one or more new user features will be asked to complete those features first. Once the new user feature activities have been completed, the user will be given access to the currently active engagement phase.

💡 Ted Tip: Testers can't always stick around for open-ended projects and may need to drop off. When this happens it can throw off your audience segmentation which means you'll need to find new users to replace those who have left. New user features can help them get up to speed (e.g. download an app, register their account, etc.) before joining up with the existing users.

Phaseless features

These features show up in the feedback form drop-downs. However, since they're not tied to a specific engagement phase, testers will not be asked to engage with them specifically. This is perfect for areas of the product where users might want to provide feedback but aren't the focus of your testing. It's also useful for catch-all features like "other".

Notes

Consider how many features are in each phase. When testing with volunteers, aim for 2-3 hours of dedicated, focused testing effort per week.
Once your features have been identified, you'll also need to ensure your feedback types are aligned by creating a feature element within each type.
Consider importing a test plan spreadsheet instead of creating all your features and phases individually.